Extending Swing's ToolTipManager to change behaviour on hover?

Question

I'd like to implement a ToolTip in Swing that has customised behaviour: the longer the user hovers over the component, the more detail should be shown in the tooltip (i.e., a few new lines are added after a few seconds of the user hovering over the component). I just need to check whether this is really doable with Swing without things getting too messy. My idea at the moment would probably be:

Extend ToolTipManager
Override mouseEntered to start a timer (maybe use javax.swing.Timer?). Call setToolTipText and createToolTip to refresh the tooltip and add new information at regular intervals
Override mouseExited to reset the timer
Probably use setDismissDelay to set the dismiss delay to something a lot longer (or Integer.MAX_VALUE)

Is such a thing feasible or is this not a good way to work with Swing (sorry, I'm pretty new to it)? Is there a better way of doing this?

[edit] Hmm, just remembered that ToolTipManager is a singleton with a constructor that only has package visibility, so it can't be extended.

[edit 2] I'm trying out a few solutions at the moment. One thing that I forgot to add is that I do need to know which component is being hovered over - which I guess means I'll need to be working with some sort of listener with a mouseEntered() method (or be able to access this information). And no other interactivity with the popup/tooltip is needed - it just needs to display information.

"*Is such a thing feasible?*" Yes. Your way looks like a good option, but without a concrete implementation it's hard to tell.. — user1803551, May 21 '15 at 09:13
True! If it sounds like a decent option I'll give it a go - probably the best way of finding out. — false_azure, May 21 '15 at 09:21
With some more info I could guide you a bit more. Would something like "for every additional X seconds of hovering, add another line to the tooltip text" be a good example of what you want to achieve? — user1803551, May 21 '15 at 09:23
That makes sense, thank you. I just realised though that ToolTipManager is a singleton and can't be extended - makes things more complicated. — false_azure, May 21 '15 at 10:06
I was actually constantly thinking about `JToolTip` instead of `ToolTipManager` when reading the question (oops). The former is the one you can override, but I think that there's a simpler way.with overriding `getToolTipText(MouseEvent event)` for the component. — user1803551, May 21 '15 at 10:11
Oh great, glad there's another option. I'd gotten the two mixed up - that sounds like it'll work. — false_azure, May 21 '15 at 10:20
I got partial success via cheating. I think that overriding `JToolTip` is only necessary if you need something complicated. Is it working for you? Try to post some attempt in the question. — user1803551, May 21 '15 at 11:08
@false_azure JWindow/undecorated JDialog if some type of motality is there required (thats required:-) — mKorbel, May 21 '15 at 15:15
@false_azure JPopup is very good also, maybe excelent, better than JWindow/JDialog because flow away on (methods in API) 1st. mouse/key event — mKorbel, May 21 '15 at 15:18

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 06 '15 at 17:52

(This may seem a bit confusing so let me know if you need me to clarify let me know and I'll try to show you how I picture the code) I think your idea might work like if you extend it, and also make a private class that extends Threadand then in the run() method you do something like

while(true)
{
    sleep(1);
    timeElapsed++;
}

And in your class that extends ToolTipManager, create a field for that class that extends Thread and in the mouseEntered(MouseEvent e) instantiate the thing like:

extendsThreadClass = new ExtendsThreadClass();
extendsThreadClass.start();

and then in the mouseExited(MouseEvent e) method do

extendsThreadClass = null;

Then in that mouseEntered(MouseEvent e) method after starting the Thread then you can do what you want to do after the time thing like

if(timeElapsed > 3000)
{
   //what you want to do here
}

Sorry it may be confusing, let me know if i can clear it up for you

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 15 '15 at 21:44

I thought I should update this with the approach I took before I saw l1zZY's answer (which I think is the better way of doing things - I still had bugs in my code before I moved onto something else, but this might still be helpful to someone). This is what I did:

Extend JToolTip
Use a Swing Timer for timing
Add a MouseMotion listener to the JTree (in my case I wanted the popup to show when a node was hovered over)

Somewhat inelegantly, detect when the mouse moved over a tree node like this:

public void mouseMoved(MouseEvent e) {
int x = (int) e.getX();
int y = (int) e.getY();
TreePath path = getPathForLocation(x, y);
if (path == null) {
    tooltip.hide();
} else {
    TreeNode node = (TreeNode) path.getLastPathComponent();
    tooltip.setHoveredNode(node); 
    if (!tooltip.isVisible) {
        int absX = e.getXOnScreen();
        int absY = e.getYOnScreen();
        final Popup tooltipContainer = PopupFactory.getSharedInstance().getPopup(PDTreeView.this, 
                tooltip, absX, absY);
        tooltip.setToolTipContainer(tooltipContainer);
        tooltip.show();
    }
}

}

tooltip.show() refers to how the tooltip was contained in a Popup in order to show or hide it programmatically. show() shows the Popup (and therefore tooltip) and also starts the Swing timer.
Timer has a method called actionPerformed() which is called at whatever interval you set. I just had that method call the code that adds new information to the tooltip. in hide(), I reset the tooltip and the timer.

I had issues with the popup or tooltip not resizing to fit the content, but otherwise this seemed ok.

Extending Swing's ToolTipManager to change behaviour on hover?

2 Answers2